Like so many others, Lizzo is feeling emotional about the violence happening amid ICE’s immigration enforcement operations in Minnesota, where the star lived while first starting her music career.

In a Wednesday (Jan. 28) video posted to her social media profiles, the artist addressed the political turmoil unfolding in the city she once called home before offering ways her followers could help, if they have the means. “I know it can feel helpless watching all of this unfold on our phones, but after talking to local organizers on the ground in Minneapolis, here’s a couple ways you can help,” she began.

Lizzo went on to share a GoFundMe for Jayla Ramirez, a person who wrote on the fundraising site that their father had been detained by ICE in Minneapolis and is in need of $20,000 for bail and $10,000 for lawyer fees. The Grammy winner also shouted out Smitten Kitten, a Minneapolis sex shop that has become a haven for mutual aid and resources for people in need, and Glam Doll Donuts, which Lizzo said is located across the street from the spot where ICU nurse Alex Pretti was killed by an ICE agent on Jan. 24, as places in need of support.

“I am fully aware of the financial recession that we’re going through in this country,” Lizzo noted. “When I make videos like this, I am never ever asking my fans or anyone who is in a less fortunate financial situation than me to donate to a GoFundMe. I make videos like these, because I don’t have the phone number of every rich and famous person or influencer who can help in my phone.”

“My heart goes out to Minneapolis,” she added, getting choked up. “In the years that I lived there, whether it was Philando Castile, whether it was Jamar Clark, whether it was George Floyd, this seems to happen — the injustice happens there. And what I’ve also seen is the community rise up every single time. If I find more ways to help, I will be sharing them.”

Throughout January, ICE has been stationed in Minneapolis for an ongoing immigration enforcement operation that has sparked nationwide outrage and countless local protests. Pretti is just one of two civilians who have been fatally shot by ICE officers in the first month of the year, with agent Jonathan Ross killing Renee Good on Jan. 7. The Donald Trump administration has maintained that both were instances of officers acting in self-defense, but many believe that videos captured by eyewitnesses suggest otherwise in both cases.

Shortly after posting her video about Minneapolis, Lizzo shared another emotional update about another heartbreaking development in a different city. Los Angeles activist Shirley Raines — who built a following on TikTok with videos in which she distributed food, clothing and other essentials to unhoused people on Skid Row — died at the age of 58. The news was announced Wednesday by her charity, Beauty 2 The Streetz, which didn’t give a cause of death.

“I am devastated,” a tearful Lizzo said in Instagram Stories, calling Raines an “incredible woman” and noting how the two women often collaborated on charitable efforts. “When the public was turning its back on me, she never did. She was like, ‘Stay encouraged.’ She would always send me messages of love, and she would never ever ask for anything in return.”

“People like her are rare,” Lizzo added. “Her work is not over. She overserved the underserved … I’m so sad that you’re gone.”

Watch Lizzo’s TikTok on how to help people in Minneapolis and support Jayla Ramirez below.

Just hours after Bruce Springsteen dropped his lacerating anti-ICE anthem “Streets of Minneapolis” on Wednesday (Jan. 28) veteran British protest singer Billy Bragg weighed in with his own ripped-from-the-headlines song reacting to the killing of two American citizens by Trump administration immigration agents in Minnesota.

In a note accompanying the bare-bones “City of Heroes,” which Bragg said he wrote on Tuesday (Jan. 27) and released less than 24 hours later, the singer explained, “The murder of Alex Pretti was horrifically shocking, all the more so as we are still reeling from the images of the murder of Renee Good. That these crimes can be committed in broad daylight, on camera and yet no one is held accountable only adds to the injustice.”

He said he wrote the song in tribute to the bravery of the people of Minneapolis, “knowing that these trigger happy ICE thugs operate with seeming impunity in their midst, are still willing to put themselves in harms way to defend their community. Their resistance is an inspiration to us all.”

The acoustic “City of Heroes” opens with a reference to Friedrich Gustav Martin Niemöller, a Lutheran German pastor who initially sympathized with some Nazi ideas, but was later sent to a concentration camp after speaking out against the Nazi regime. After the war ended, he penned a poem entitled “First They Came,” which in the decades since has become a rallying cry for speaking up in the face of oppression thanks to such iconic lines as “Then they came for the Jews/ And I did not speak out/ Because I was not a Jew.”

“The ghost of Martin Niemöller/ Haunts the halls of history/ When they came for the communists/ He said ‘It’s nothing to do with me,’” Bragg sings over furiously strummed acoustic guitar. “What excuses would you tell yourself/ If this ever happened to you?/ Well I live in a city of heroes/ I know what I would do.”

Bragg then unfolds a litany of examples of how Minnesota residents are standing up, speaking out and exercising their constitutionally guaranteed free speech rights amid the often draconian actions of the thousands of masked, armed immigration agents that have flooded Minneapolis. “When they came for the immigrants/ I got in their face/ When they came for the refugees/ I got in their face,” Bragg sings. “When they came for the five-year-olds/ I got in their face/ When they came to my neighborhood/ I just got in their face.”

Like Springsteen’s quick turn-around track, Bragg’s pointed protest song touches on the horrifying scenes on the ground in Minneapolis, which have included ICE agents taking a five-year-old child into custody and quickly sending him and his father to a mass detention center in Texas, as well as the highly publicized killings of two American citizens: 37-year-old mother of three Renée Good and 37-year-old intensive care nurse Alex Pretti.

Bragg describes how the immigration agents have deployed pepper spray and tear gas against unarmed protesters who fought back by filming their actions and warning others with whistles, as well as the scenes of agents dragging people from their cars and removing families from their homes, including an elderly U.S. citizen who was dragged from his home by masked, armed agents without a warrant in his underwear in frigid temperatures only to be released hours later amid claims that the senior citizen refused to be fingerprinted or facially ID’d during the botched raid.

“I will bear witness to terror/ I will bear witness to tyranny,” Bragg sings. “I will bear witness to murder/ I will bear witness to fascism.”

Following nationwide pushback after the killing of ICU nurse Pretti during the so-called Operation Metro Surge, including from some Republican legislators, President Trump got on the phone with Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz and Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey earlier this week in a reported attempt to tamp down the blowback. But a day later, after pulling controversial, pugnacious Border Patrol official Greg Bovino from Minneapolis and replacing him with border czar Tom Homan, Trump amped up the rhetoric again, accusing Frey on Wednesday of “playing with fire” for insisting that local police should refrain from enforcing federal immigration laws.

Bragg joins a growing list of artists who are speaking out against ICE and Trump’s aggressive immigration tactics, a roster that includes Billie Eilish and Finneas, Dave Matthews, Moby, Olivia Rodrigo, the Chicks and, during a show in Tokyo on Thursday (Jan. 29) Lady Gaga, who paused her Mayhem Ball show to send a message of support.

“In a couple of days, I’m gonna be heading home, and my heart is aching thinking about the people, the children, the families, all over America, who are being mercilessly targeted by ICE,” Gaga told the crowd. “I’m thinking about all of their pain and how their lives are being destroyed right in front of us… We need to get back to a place of safety and peace and accountability. Good people shouldn’t have to fight so hard and risk their lives for well-being and respect, and I hope our leaders are listening. I hope you’re listening to us asking you to change your course of action swiftly and have mercy on everyone in our country.”

Listen to Bragg’s “City of Heroes” below.

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Yasuhisa Hara’s Kingdom Vol. 78 hits No. 1 on the Billboard Japan Book Hot 100 chart released Jan. 29.

The Japan Book Hot 100 is a comprehensive chart combining physical sales, e-books, library loans, subscription data, and social media activity. This week, the latest volume of Kingdom, which marks the series’ 20th anniversary, takes the top spot. The volume leads both physical stores and e-books, while also coming in at No. 6 for EC (e-commerce).

Debuting at No. 2 is Tsurumaikada’s Medalist Vol. 14. With Season 2 of the anime adaptation currently airing, the latest volume of the figure-skating manga comes in at No. 2 for e-books, No. 3 for physical stores, and No. 11 for EC. Meanwhile, HANA’s “Cold Night,” featured as the opener for the TV anime, also debuts on the Japan Hot 100 song chart this week. Synergy between the original work and the anime series is expected to continue.

EBiDAN Visual Dictionary 2026 follows at No. 3. The book features newly shot photos and interviews of 60 members of EBiDAN, including popular acts such as Bullet Train and M!LK. Also charting at No. 8 is the Japanese version of Andy Weir’s Project Hail Mary Vol. 1. The paperback edition of the gripping space survival odyssey was released Jan. 22, and a live-action film adaptation is slated for release in March.

Check out the top 10 titles on this week’s Japan Book Hot 100, tracking the period from Jan. 19 to 25 below.

(Numbers in parentheses indicate the title’s metric placements for physical stores, EC, e-books, subscriptions, and social media, top 20 only. English title given if translations or adaptations exist.)

1. Kingdom Vol. 78, Yasuhisa Hara (1・6・1・-・-)

2. Medalist Vol. 14, Tsurumaikada (3・11・2・-・-)

3. EBiDAN Visual Dictionary 2026, EBiDAN (-・1・-・-・-)

4. Blue Lock Vol. 37, Muneyuki Kaneshiro, Yusuke Nomura (2・-・9・-・-)

5. Isekai Meikyu de Harem wo (Harem in the Labyrinth of Another World) Vol. 12, Issei Hyoju, Shachi Sogano, Shikidouji (5・-・3・-・-)

6. Shangri-La Frontier Vol. 25, Katarina, Ryosuke Fuji (4・-・-・-・-)


7. Naruse wa Tenka wo Toriniiku, Mina Miyajima (-・-・-・1・2)

8. Project Hail Mary Vol. 1, Andy Weir, Kazuko Onoda (16・20・-・-・4)

9. In the Megachurch, Ryo Asai (-・-・-・20・1)

10. Konjiki no Gash!! 2 (Zatch Bell! 2) Vol. 6, Makoto Raiku (6・-・-・-・-)


Mötley Crüe has won a key ruling in its bitter breakup with guitarist Mick Mars, saying that the band was legally allowed to fire him – and that Mars actually owes his ex-mates hundreds of thousands of dollars.

The civil war inside the iconic heavy metal band burst into the open in 2023, when Mars filed a lawsuit accusing co-founders Nikki Sixx, Tommy Lee and Vince Neil of unfairly terminating him and failing to pay him after he could no longer tour due to a chronic illness.

But in a ruling made public on Tuesday and obtained by Billboard, an arbitrator says the band did nothing wrong. He says Crüe was legally entitled to remove Mars after his guitar playing had severely “deteriorated” — and that the band had long ago agreed that only touring members would be paid.

“I find that the contracts, the law, and the equities lead to the conclusion that band members who stop touring are not entitled to share in the proceeds from touring,” writes Patrick J. Walsh, a retired federal judge. “Mars voluntarily stopped touring and, as a result, he is not entitled to share in the tour proceeds.”

On the contrary, Walsh says it’s actually Mars who owes the band money. In 2019, the guitarist received $1.5 million as his portion of a $7 million advance Crüe received from Live Nation for an upcoming tour – a sum that was to be recouped by the band’s performances. Since Mars skipped 69 shows, Walsh says he must pay back much of that advance.

“It was not a payment for services. It was not a gift. It was not an honorarium. It was an advance,” Walsh writes. “And Mars knew it and knew that he had to pay it back.”

Under that ruling, Mars owes the band more than $750,000 in unrecouped advance money. But since Crüe must also pay him $505,737 for his 25 percent stake in the band after removing him, Walsh says the final bill is for Mars to pay the band $244,293.

In a statement, Mötley Crüe’s attorney Sasha Frid said: “This dispute was about protecting the integrity and legacy of one of the most successful bands in rock history. With the arbitrator rejecting every claim and enforcing the parties’ agreements as written, the band has been fully vindicated—legally, financially, and factually.”

An attorney for Mars did not immediately return a request for comment.

Formed in 1981, Mötley Crüe was one of the top rock bands of the 1980s, reaching the top of the Billboard 200 with 1989’s Dr. Feelgood. But in April 2023, Mars claimed that his former “brothers” had tossed him to the curb after he said he could no longer tour due to a “tragic” disability called ankylosing spondylitis.

The band strongly denied the allegations, saying they had offered Mars “generous compensation” and had tried to “keep these matters private to honor Mick’s legacy,” but that he had chosen to file an “ugly public lawsuit.” They claimed Mars made serious errors on stage before he exited the band, including suddenly “playing a different song in the middle of another one.”

For years, the dispute moved ahead in private arbitration, where Walsh considered the disputed requirements of the band’s operating agreement and sorted out who owed what to whom. Over the past year, the arbitrator has issued a series of sealed rulings siding with Crüe. On Tuesday, those decisions were made public when Crüe’s attorneys asked a Los Angeles court to confirm them.

In seeking to keep getting paid after stepping away from touring, Mars argued that other iconic musical acts like Earth, Wind & Fire and The Beach Boys had kept paying their founding members even after they were unable to keep performing. In his ruling, Walsh says that very well may be true, but that it had no bearing on the battle over Crue.

“Mars argues that it is immoral for him to be cast aside after forming the backbone of this group for more than four decades merely because his age and AS symptoms precluded him from performing,” the retired judge writes in his decision. “I am not unsympathetic to this argument but it is not for me in the context of this arbitration to weigh in on the morality of the band’s decision.”

The judge pointedly notes that it was Mars himself who was the “architect” of the contract provision requiring payment of tour revenue only to band members who actually performed in concert. And Walsh says that provision makes perfect sense because touring can be “rigorous, monotonous, and onerous.”

“It requires them to be separated from their family and friends for long stretches of time and sleep in a bed not their own night after night. In fact, these are some of the very reasons why Mars elected to stop touring,” the judge writes. “It seems inequitable that three members of a band would be subjected to the hardships of the road yet all four would share in the spoils.”

As for Mars’ removal from the band, the judge says the band’s operating agreement gives the other three members broad powers to decide when a member should be removed “for cause” — and that they had cited valid reasons for doing so.

“The testimony established that they terminated Mars because they believed that his guitar playing had so deteriorated that they had to make provisions to cover for his mistakes when he strayed during
concerts,” Walsh writes. “The decision by Sixx, Lee, and Neil to terminate him as an officer and director for legal cause is entitled to deference.”